Apple Inc.’s impending release of the Apple Watch on April 24 has the potential to essentially create another new mobile market: wearable devices. Smartphones existed before the iPhone, and tablets existed before the iPad. But trendsetter Apple, with its cachet and cash, created the markets for smartphones and tablets, devices that today dominate the time consumers spend with online retail. So retailers may suddenly find a lot of consumers looking for things to do on their smartwatches.

Nearly 70% of consumers say they are ready to interact with brands via wearables, finds Accent Marketing Services LLC, which in February 2015 surveyed more than 1,000 U.S. consumers ages 18-60 who own or plan to buy a wearable. Accent Marketing is a digital marketing agency.

Currently, the main ways for a brand to interact with consumers through wearables is mobile payments, loyalty programs and coupons, all of which retailers currently are pioneering on smartphones, says Reid Sherard, an analyst at research and consulting firm L2 Think Tank. Security, however, is key for consumers adopting wearables because the devices are tethered to phones, social media accounts and payment systems.

“Recently, retailers don’t have a great track record of keeping information secure,” he says, a reference to high-profile security breaches at retail organizations in the last couple of years.

Still, half of the survey respondents say they would buy wearable technology so brands can send alerts and have more insights into their lifestyle, and 75% of the millennials surveyed, consumers born between 1980 and 1999, say wearable technology is a new way for consumer brands to engage with customers.

Before marketers rush to monetize wearables they should have a strategy, says Joline McGoldrick, research director at Millward Brown Digital, a research and marketing firm. Consumers say they are open to interacting with brands, but the wearables market is new and privacy boundaries are not yet set, she notes.

Pat Dermody, president of Retale, a location-based mobile platform, is excited about using wearables to connect her company’s brand to consumers. Retale will have an app compatible with the Apple Watch that will guide consumers to retail store locations and display retailer ads on the smartwatch.

“We are very bullish on wearables,” Dermody says. “The opportunity is large.”

Only 22% of respondents to the Accent Marketing survey, however, say wearable technology will change how they shop in-store and online. Consumers are especially open to athletic applications of wearables, as 74% of respondents think wearable technology will change how they engage with their fitness provider. 43% of survey respondents currently own a fitness wearable: 22% Fitbit, 7% Jawbone, 7% Garmin and 7% Nike.

Survey respondents were unclear how the Apple Watch will impact their digital life—54% of consumers say the Apple Watch is an exciting use of wearable technology, but 80% do not plan to buy it. Although it may not impact a retail business model, the Apple Watch could affect specific brands, Sherard says.

“It’s very feasible a buyer would forgo a $250 Michael Kors watch or a $300 silver bracelet from Tiffany for a $350 Apple Watch,” he says.

For brands wanting to develop their own wearable device, partnerships are key, Sherard says.

“For a lot of brands, the in-house knowledge to both design a product consumers will put on their body and the tech savvy to make that product useful don’t reside under the same roof, so partnering with an Intel or a Google is critical in the product development stage,” he says.

Follow mobile business journalist April Dahlquist, associate editor, mobile, at Internet Retailer, at @MobileStrat360A.

Sign up for a free subscription to Mobile Strategies 360, a new weekly newsletter (debuting in May) reporting on how businesses in all industries use mobile technologies to communicate with and market and sell to their consumers. Mobile Strategies 360 is published by Vertical Web Media LLC, which also publishes Internet Retailer, a business publication on e-retailing.

Favorite